k twice about
seats at the theatre, and told each other about cheap dressmakers. Those
and a few other expeditions of the same sort were my best times after
I was married, and they helped me to go through with it the rest of the
time. But I felt my husband would have hated to know how much I enjoyed
every hour of those returns to the old life.

'And in the end, in spite of everything I could do, he came to know....
He could see through anything, I think, once his attention was turned to
it. He had always been able to see that I was not fulfilling his idea of
me as a figure in the social world, and I suppose he thought it was
my misfortune rather than my fault. But the moment he began to see, in
spite of my pretending, that I wasn't playing my part with any spirit,
he knew the whole story; he divined how I loathed and was weary of the
luxury and the brilliancy and the masses of money just because of the
people who lived among them--who were made so by them, I suppose....
It happened last year. I don't know just how or when. It may have been
suggested to him by some woman--for they all understood, of course. He
said nothing to me, and I think he tried not to change in his manner to
me at first; but such things hurt--and it was working in both of us.
I knew that he knew. After a time we were just being polite and
considerate to each other. Before he found me out we had been on a
footing of--how can I express it to you?--of intelligent companionship,
I might say. We talked without restraint of many things of the kind
we could agree or disagree about without its going very deep... if you
understand. And then that came to an end. I felt that the only possible
basis of our living in each other's company was going under my feet. And
at last it was gone.

'It had been like that,' she ended simply, 'for months before he died.'
She sank into the corner of a sofa by the window, as though relaxing
her body after an effort. For a few moments both were silent. Trent
was hastily sorting out a tangle of impressions. He was amazed at
the frankness of Mrs Manderson's story. He was amazed at the vigorous
expressiveness in her telling of it. In this vivid being, carried away
by an impulse to speak, talking with her whole personality, he had seen
the real woman in a temper of activity, as he had already seen the real
woman by chance in a temper of reverie and unguarded emotion. In both
she was very unlike the pale, self-disciplined creature